Taross
Taross are a unique and highly customizable class on Dark Skies. They can spread points around between Parry, Dodge, Bypass, Attacks, Damage, Resistance, Weaponlevels, and Magic to customize their capabilities, and can reset and reallocate those points without penalty. Starting To begin Taross, train primal up to Meld Body, which grants you the points you'll need to use Meld on those other attributes to set up your character. There are 5 ranks of body, each costing 500 more primal than the previous rank. Max body gives 60 points on a new character. Taross do not currently have classeq except for their class weapon (Scimitar), and must thus use Celtic equipment. Their mastery item grants the Resistance attribute. They do not natively acquire Haste, so it is recommended to farm an Infinity (http://darkskies.wikia.com/wiki/Special_Equipment#Infinity) ASAP. While difficult, a Taross is capable of soloing Infinity while still in Newbie hours, though it may be easier to wait until Tier 2-3 before attempting to do so. Later on, a QuickSilver Medal from the Battle Arena can be acquired by beating Medium difficulty in 1 minute or less, and may be preferable to Infinity. Melds Meld point costs for everything except Magic costs 1 for rank 1, 2 for rank 2, 3 for rank 3, 4 for rank 4, and 5 for rank 5. Thus, maxing a single attribute costs 15 points. Magic's costs, on the other hand, are 4/8/12/16/20 - max magic costs a full 60 points. The "meld" screen also displays what magic powers are available to you based on your Magic rank, as well. At 5 body, you can use Trueform, which grants you third and fourth arms, as well as 3 "dimension rip" autoattacks. You also get Bodyslam at body 2 or body 3, which is a nice melee midround that gains attacks with the Attacks meld (I believe 1 at 1/3/5, but I'm not sure on this). Weaponlevel meld grants 25 weaponlevel per point. Taross natively max at 600. Damage and Resistance both seem to grant a 5-6% boost at max rank. Maintains Taross also get maintains. The initial maintains require rank 5 in a specific Meld attribute to use. The maintains are: - Tense (Requires Parry 5): Counterattack when you dodge/parry. This seems to be nearly 100% VS mobs, but much much lower VS players. It seems that players are able to dodge/parry the counter, which results in no message being displayed, meaning Tense is best used against opponents with a high number of melee attacks, but low bypass/dodge/parry (e.g. Demons). - Bleed (Requires Damage 5): Occasional "Taross Punch" autoattack, which seems to also inflict a bleed DOT. Does not seem to proc against mobs, semi-frequent against players. Potency of Bleed DOT currently unknown, research is pending. - Hardskin (Requires Resist 5): Damage reverb and vorpal resistance. - Weaponcounter (Requires Weaponlevels 5): Occasionally counters a disarm with one of your own. Only good in very specific situations. - Barrier (Requires Magic 5): Damage resistance. Seems to be about 10%, maybe? Powerdrains from some classes, such as Avengers, grant additional maintains. These stolen maintains do not have any meld requirements. Powerdrain The final and most interesting aspect of Taross is their ability to steal other class's powers. Use "Powerdrain" on a morted opponent that you're able to legally decapitate to steal their power. You can initially hold 2 souls, and this number increases with your tiers (3 souls at Tier 3, 4 souls at Tier 5, unsure on the rest). You cannot powerdrain in arena or in coliseum, but you CAN powerdrain in warzones. Type "Expel" without an argument to see which souls you currently have, and what benefits they grant you. Many souls grant additional maintains, although some grant middies or starters. Typing "Expel" with an argument can be used to discard a soul. You can use Mergesoul to combine two souls you currently possess into one soul of your choice. This can be particularly useful to get a soul from a rarely played class, or for repeatedly merging the soul of a recurring Warzone opponent to determine what other class' souls do. The true power of this class is reached by experimenting with souls and finding ones that work well with your playstyle/build. Suggested souls are Phoenix, Vampire, Werewolf, Ninja, Droid, and Water Shinobi. Phoenix soul offers a maintain that increases regeneration so long as one stays in the room. Vampire provides an extra life draining hit every round while Werewolf offers a much stronger hit per round. Ninja provides a sleep bomb which allows a damage bonus on the first hit. Droid soul provides a nerfed down version of the Droid's energy cannon middy. Water Shinobi provides an ambush option. It's absolutely worth exploring all of the souls as they each offer a shred of a class's power, and sometimes they play well in conjunction with other souls. Example provided is the Ninja and Droid soul working hand in hand, putting a player asleep and setting up for the charge to start on the Taross's stolen photon cannon attack to charge some before they realize they're sleeping. Pros and Cons Pros * Easy class to learn. They only have a few "stock" midrounds, and the meld/maintain system is fairly simple to grasp. * VERY effective against mobiles. This includes quest mobiles and battle arena. * Highly flexible and customizable class due to the meld/maintain system, as well as the powerdrain system. * Melee Taross builds scale well with both gear and tier while Magic Taross builds make for strong starting low tier contenders. Cons * Difficult to master. Specific maintain and meld setups vary widely in their effectiveness against other classes (e.g. Tense is great against demons, horrid against Samurai). With over 30 possible souls available, it takes a long time just to learn what commands the Taross CAN learn, let alone their effectiveness against other classes. Different meld setups also scale differently with Tier and Generation. * Lackluster in Warzones. Since Taross do not natively get haste in their class eq, they're one of the few classes able to claim a gear disadvantage in Warzones. ** Since Melee and Magic setups scale differently with tier and generation, Taross players need to monitor and adjust to the current state of the Warzone, or accept multiple defeats. * Melee taross have no native utility/emergency commands. They have bodyslam and that's it. They can get some additional utility/emergency middies from other classes via powerdrain, but it can be a struggle to build a good "toolbelt" of powerdrains, especially at lower Tiers. * Switching between Melee and Magic gets less viable at higher tiers as the Taross must decide whether to spend EQP/steels/etc towards damroll or psyche. Recommendations The melee melds are very effective against mobs, especially when combined with Maintain Tense. Melee also gets more potent in PVP at higher tiers. Insofar as the baseline Maintains go, it's safe use Tense against NPCs and Bleed against PCs. For PVP, many veterans recommend going with a "Mage" setup on new Taross - Magic 5, using Deplete, Sorb, Shockstrike, and Nova to win the fight. Another recommendation is an "Assassin" setup, using Magic 3 and some melee melds. The recommended hilts and pommels vary based on your playstyle. Mage taross may desire the mana upgrades, as the magic powers (and some of the midround powerdrains) can get quite mana-intensive. Melee-intensive builds may prefer vorpal hilts. The "Physical Enhancer" artifact is truly powerful for Taross, allowing them 2 maintains instead of 1. For baseline taross, this greatly benefits melee-specced Taross, due to them being able to unlock multiple maintains at once once they power drain. Once class maintains have been stolen, though, mages can equally benefit from this artifact. Also remember to check your melds in arena and warzone. Your meld point total changes based on the status/tier you're set to in those areas, and if the new total is lower than your previous one, it will deactivate melds until your current amount is below the new total. by Chernobog, not a veteran by any means. If a veteran recommends something contrary to this wiki article, I recommend you listen to them over me. Entry modified by Jifo. Category:Classes